update
I’ve just had an offer accepted for.
The property is 3 doors away from me and is fairly similar to my house when I bought it 3 years ago, they are very strange bungalows that consist of a 6.5m x 5m building with a gable roof and a separate bathroom with a small flat roof linking to two, when I bought mine, I knocked down the bathroom and connecting flat roof and re-built an extension that didn’t need planning because of its size, the problem with this new property is that I’ve heard from some good sources that the when the extension was done ,the owners didn’t get planning or building regs
Now this is where its gets messier as we are buying it as repossession, now I know that the man who had it repossessed had the house for 12 years and the people before him did the extension about 14 years ago. I intend to buy the house what ever happens, as im looking forward to learning lots of skills building it, but what im not sure about is how to find out more about the property without letting the council know about the planning issues..
I’ve read that I should get indemnity insurance on the property so that I’m covered against anything the council could ask me to do, but people have also told me that I should not mention to the council or even ask them about planning permission on the property as once I have done this I can not get indemnity insurance!
Am I allowed to go to the planning office and just freely look over plans without bringing this problem to there attention?
What I basically want to see is the original drawings to see the original outline of the building, As I want to extend the extension a bit more, maybe even knock some of it down and change it abit and want to know me options